Lully reviews

Loosely based on Euripides’s drama Alcestis, Lully’s tragédie en musique spans the gamut of human emotion, from high tragedy to frothy comedy. Love in its many guises – passionate, flirtatious, noble and selfless – is the driving force of the opera. The work’s ultimate hero is Alcide (Hercules), a thinly disguised allusion to Louis XIV, whom Lully celebrates in the fawning Prologue and with bellicose and triumphant music.

By the time L’Apothéose de Lully was published in 1725 the Italian style, long resisted in France, was well established, brought in by a veritable flood of sonatas and cantatas. With exquisite sensibility, François Couperin sought a ‘middle way’ by uniting the French and Italian styles to produce musical perfection.

Lully’s Persée was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1682. This version is a radical refit celebrating the marriage of the future Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in 1770, coinciding with the long-awaited opening of the Royal Opera at Versailles. Three composers and a librettist were involved in a reworking that reduced the original prologue and five acts to four. Such radical revisions were commonplace in the 18th century, accepted as a way of keeping venerable scores current.

‘Rousset draws alert and vital playing from his crack instrumental ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, while his direction of the unfolding drama is responsive but never overblown’

Lully

Alceste

Judith Van Wanroij, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Ambroisine Bré; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset

Aparté AP164  150:59 mins (2 discs)

Amadis represents something of a new trend in Lully’s operas. The subject, selected by Louis XIV, reflects an almost Arthurian world of medieval romance contrasting with the lofty classical subjects he had favoured hitherto. Although Lully was musically set in his ways by this stage, there are some surprising moments, not least in his use of more duets than was customary, scaling heights of expressive richness in those between the captive Florestan and Corisande in Act III.

Lully’s Psyché started life as a ballet in 1671 with a text master-minded by Molière. Over a period of seven years, it was refashioned into an opera. Completed in 1678, it tells of the goddess Venus’s desire to punish Psyché for her universally admired beauty. Her son, L’Amore (Cupid), dispatched to ruin Psyché’s life, promptly falls in love with her and builds her a palace.

The Frenchman Gérard Souzay (1918-2004) was undoubtedly one of the greatest baritones of the post-war period, pupil and successor to the great Pierre Bernac, friend of Poulenc, as well as Claire Croiza, Lotte Lehmann and other luminaries. Throughout his career he remained somewhat overshadowed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Nevertheless, many preferred Souzay in Lieder especially, finding his style less mannered and more fluent.